Bagging machines to handle plastic bags having a liquid therein, such as milk pouches, are known in the art. For example, reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,391, issued on Feb. 5, 1991 which shows milk pouches being conveyed, one at a time, to individualized compartments of a loading housing by means of pivoted guide plates and once the housing has received a correct number of pouches, usually three pouches, a trap door releases the pouch into a bag positioned thereunder. Such machines are usually loaded in sequence or in alternating sequence, as is known in the art. A disadvantage of such machines is that they have a relatively slow cycle time due to the fact that it takes time to fill the loading compartments of these machines as each pouch must be fed individually, in sequence, to a difference compartment. Thereafter the housing has to discharge its contents into a bag held thereunder through a trap door. The door then needs to be closed before other pouches can be loaded in the housing. Also, because the pouches are not always equidistantly spaced on the feed conveyors, the cycle time cannot be accelerated.
Reference is also made to Canadian patent application Ser. No. 2,141,741, published Aug. 4, 1996, and entitled "AUTOMATIC BAGGING MACHINE AND METHOD OF PLACING ARTICLES IN A BAG FORMED BY THE MACHINE AND CAPABLE OF SEALING THE BAG", which relates to an automatic bagging machine. However, such machine did not produce the intended results.